


Wolves & Cubs

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Intersections [2]
Category: Hotel Artemis (2018), Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Genre: Complicated Relationships, M/M, Organized Crime, Parenthood, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 20:36:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16605020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Ren requested Orian and Crosby, so I did some Orian/Zach and Crosby parenting, and Orian grumbling over it.





	Wolves & Cubs

It’s, uh, it’s  _six months_  into this whole thing with Zach. Six months in, and Orian, he, uh, he introduced the kids to Zach four months ago. Let them come in of the morning and find Orian paging through the news on his tablet as Zach cooked him breakfast, and Zach, he’d–

God, the way he’d looked at them. 

He kinda wishes he’d had a camera to take a photo of it, of his face: Zach stood in his clothes from last night, the spatula in his hand, and he’d just looked so  _surprised_ , and something else, too. Excited. The kids had already been dressed for school, and they’d each stopped to peer at him, examining Zach.

“I thought all your brothers were dead,” Miranda had said, in a tone that implied disapproval. 

“Mmm, no, Zach is no relation,” Orian had replied, without looking up from his tablet. “He’s, uh, the latest piece of ass.” Zach had dipped his fingers in his glass of water and flicked some into Orian’s face, and Orian had laughed, leaning back and looking at Zach with amusement. 

“You kids want some eggs?” Zach had asked, and just like that, the kids had sat down, had begun to cautiously make their weigh-up of this man Orian had invited into his bed - Miranda had called both of them narcissists, and then said they were incestuous, and had then implied in a tone of great delicacy that Zach, she assumed, must be bought and paid for. Zach had laughed, and said, “Oh, no, sweetheart, I’m a cop.” And when Miranda had gone pale, he’d laughed at her, and put some more bacon on her plate.

And that, well, that had been it.

He’d shown his dominance over the queen bee at the table, and the kids had respected him for it, at least a little. Even now, they sometimes mess him around a little, but Zach, he can hold his own, and honestly, he’s  _good_  with the kids. He can tell when Miranda’s just being nasty when she can, or when she’s genuinely in a mood; Rachel actually  _talks_  to him, which is more than she does for Orian half the time; and Cros… 

Cros, he’s a funny thing. When he was very young, Orian had been soft with him - he’d wanted to carry Crosby wherever they went, had fussed over him, and gosh, when he’d been, uh, when he’d been just a baby, Orian had just  _delighted_  in the smell of his hair, how warm he’d been when Orian had held him to his chest.

But the kid–

You know, the kid, he’s a  _pussy_. Such a weakling of a thing, jumps at loud noises, keeps wriggling out of coming out to the gun range with Orian and the girls, only seems willing to do the bare  _minimum_  of the exercises Orian encourages the kids to do, and just wants to stay inside and  _draw_  all day. And he’s a good artist, Orian will give him that - he’s a good artist, and his grades are good, but he’s just such a  _milksop_. 

Orian isn’t all that patient with him. He feels bad for that, he really does, but it’s just so frustrating to be dealing with him, at times, and yet, Zach, he… You know, he’s  _gentle_  with Cros. He’s patient. And Orian doesn’t know why that’s, uh, why that’s so sexy, exactly, seeing this guy talk with his son or fix his hair or make him breakfast, but–

It’s pretty sexy.

And today…

Mm. Well.

When Crosby comes into the door  _late,_  and crying his eyes out, Orian is ready to fly off the handle, because his son has a new shiner blooming on his eye, and he’s trying to talk, but Orian isn’t inclined to wait for the answer - he wants to go out and have whatever fucking boy did this to his son  _killed_ , now, immediately–

He’s pacing as Zach sits Crosby down, tilts his head back so that he can get a better look at the bruise. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Cry ‘til you want to stop.” He says it very quietly as he holds out his hand, and Rachel passes him an icepack. “You feel dizzy?”

“No,” Crosby says.

“And the vision in your bad eye, it’s okay, right? Not blurry, doesn’t hurt to focus on me?”

“No,” Crosby says.

“Good,” Zach murmurs, and he gently sets the ice against the changing colour of his skin, making Crosby hiss out a cry of pain. There are tears wet on his cheeks, and Orian sets his jaw.

“What’s the kid’s name?” he asks, sharply.

“You can’t kill a  _kid_ , Orian,” Zach says.

“You fucking serious? Are you– Honey, are you, uh, are you telling me how to  _parent_  my–”

“Shut up,” Zach snaps, and there’s a ringing pause in the room as Orian feels a sudden thrum of excitement in his chest (mmm, inappropriate to the setting, but hey), and also  _indignation_. Nobody talks to him like that, not in front of his kids, not in front of people, but– “Tell me what happened, honey.”

“I wasn’t  _doing_  anything,” Crosby says plaintively. “I was just… I was just sketching on my phone on the bus, I wasn’t drawing him - I was drawing from a pose  _you_  did for me, I just didn’t have it open on my phone because I was trying to draw it from memory and–”

“What did he say?” Zach says, and his voice is quiet and calm. Miranda and Orian are both pacing now, at opposite ends of the room, and while Orian has a more casual saunter, Miranda is stiff, her hands clenched at her sides, her jaw held stiffly, her shoulders hunched. Rachel is standing still, her hands in front of her stomach, staring powerlessly at Crosby and Zach on the sofa. “Tell me what he said, honey.”

“He said I shouldn’t… That I shouldn’t draw him, and I said I wasn’t, and he said– He called me a…” Crosby looks between Miranda and Orian, and then back at Zach, looking down at his chest instead of his face. “And I said I wasn’t a– That my dad was gay, and that he was a weakling for being frightened of someone just because they might be different, and he laughed, and he punched me.”

“And this was on the bus?”

“Yeah,” Crosby says. “But the bus driver didn’t see, and I ran off before he could ask what had happened, and I walked the rest of the way home so that–”

“Why’d you do that?” Zach asks softly. “Why’d you run off the bus? He could have helped, the bus driver.”

“No,” Cros says. “He would have made me sit at the front of the bus, and then Ad– and then  _he’d_  think I was a pussy, and that he’d make me a target.”

“What is his–”

“Orian, I swear to Christ, if you say one more word, I’m gonna cuff you to the stairs.” Mmm, and  _that_ , God, that just sets Orian’s skin on fire.

“Zachary, you are on very,  _very_  thin ice.” Zach looks back to Crosby, and Orian exhales. He doesn’t know what it is that keeps him still, what makes him  _not_  just reach out and grab Zach by the hair - if anybody else spoke to him like this in front of his kids, Orian would have them  _killed_ , but… It’s different, somehow. He doesn’t know how, but it is. 

“So, what’s the plan?” Zach asks, softly. “How are you gonna fix it?” Crosby hesitates.

“I don’t want to kill him,” he says. See, this is the problem.  _Pussy_  of a kid, frightened of violence, he’s just–

“Okay,” Zach says in a light tone. “Why don’t you want to kill him?”

“Too suspicious,” Crosby says. “And all he did was punch me, and I don’t want to kill somebody for something that– that unimportant.” Crosby looks down, and he mumbles something, and Orian hears Zach laugh quietly.  

“Yeah, hot-headed is right,” Zach murmurs, evenly. “So, what do you want to do, if you don’t want him killed?” Crosby sniffles, shrugging his shoulders, and Zach reaches up, gently touching through Crosby’s hair, and Orian feels his heart  _ache_ , because somebody hurt his son, and he just wants to rip them  _limb from limb_ , hot-headed or not…

“Make sure he knows not to mess with me,” Crosby says. “But it can’t be… It can’t be violent in a way that other people see, or I’ll get too much attention.”

“Very true,” Zach says, adjusting the set of the ice against Crosby’s brow. 

“And I can’t do anything online because it’s too traceable.”

“Mmm hmm,” Zach hums.

“You could have me and Rachel deal with him,” Miranda says, quietly. “We can, uh– We can rough him up, instead.”

“But then I’m a pussy who needs my sisters to protect me.”

“You are,” Miranda says, and Zach throws a cushion at her. “What? He is!”

“Except that you’re not helping him be  _independent_ , Miranda - you’re just making his situation worse! He’s  _saying_  he wants help to figure out a solution on his own. Why don’t you help him, huh?” Miranda stares at Zach for the longest moment, and it’s odd, seeing that expression of mixed indignation and upset on her face, because Orian doesn’t think he ever looks like that, and she looks just like him. 

Slowly, Miranda takes a step forward, and sinks down next to Crosby: immediately, Rachel does the same, dropping down onto the couch on the other side and taking the ice pack from Zach’s hand, supporting it against Crosby’s brow instead. Zach leans back on his heels, looking between the three of them, and Orian watches as he doesn’t say a  _word_ , as he just lets Miranda and Rachel talk through it with their little brother…

Zach steps back, and when Orian gestures for him to follow when he steps outside, they look at the pool. Zach doesn’t say a word: instead, he crosses his arms over his chest and looks out over the yard, not looking at Orian, until he says, “You can’tmow all his problems down for him.”

“He’s a  _kid_.”

“So? Would you have done that for Miranda and Rachel? Kill any kid that looked at them funny?”

“No, but– They’re  _stronger_  than he is, Zach, you know that. The kid’s  _soft_.”

“He’s soft because you make him soft!” Zach retorts, crossing his arms over his chest a little more tightly and giving him a glare. “How’s he meant to get any better with you and Miranda both breathing down his neck, stopping him from doing anything on his own?” 

“You saying it’s my fault my kid’s a pussy?” Orian asks in a low, dangerous voice, and Zach laughs.

“ _Yeah_ , honey, I am,” Zach replies. “And going around killing kids for fighting, uh,  _forgive_  me, is a sign of you losing your head because he’s your  _baby_ and you don’t want anything to happen to him, not of you being smart about protecting him.”

“You think you can do that?” Orian asks in a hiss. “You think you can come in, and tell me how to parent my kids? You haven’t got kids, have you? Huh?” Orian shoves Zach in the chest, and Zach grabs his hand, interlinking their fingers and squeezing his hand. “I don’t want you holding my hand, you–” Zach lets go of his hand to grab him by the throat, and he squeezes tightly.

“Orian,” he whispers, and he squeezes so hard Orian feels himself  _choke_. “If things go the way I want them to, they’re gonna be my kids too.” Again, there’s that sudden burst of heat in Orian’s chest, the one he always feels when he sees Zach being good with Crosby, and he heaves in a breath when Zach lets him go. “You want to go back inside?”

“No,” Orian says, and he grabs Zach by the front of his shirt, crushing their mouths together in a biting kiss. 

                                                    —

Orian doesn’t know what Crosby does to Adrian Begley, but when he sees them at parents’ night, he scrambles out of their way and rushes into a corridor. Orian feels himself smile at Crosby’s expression of tight satisfaction, and when he turns to Crosby’s English teacher, he pats Zach on the hip, and says, “This is Zachary.”

He doesn’t bother attaching a label to it - it doesn’t matter if they assume Zach is Crosby’s uncle or his cousin or  _what_. 

But he goes around with them, and when Zach tries to bring it up at dinner, makes some light comment about it, Orian ignores it completely. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Hit me up on Tumblr](http://dictionarywrites.tumblr.com/faq). Requests always open.


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